Yeah, that is really, really close to what I was thinking. The only difference I had in mind is that the perk would provide something like 75% chance of successful lockpicking, while anybody could increase their lockpicking up to a 25% success rate even without the perk. Someone could then max lockpicking with the combination of choosing the perk and simply by leveling the player.
The way that works is what I had in mind for everything that the game would consider to be a basic skill.
There are probably several ways something like this could be achieved in the design.
“Learn by Doing” is probably the worse way. I don’t think anybody would like that. For example, your lockpicking skill can go up by successfully lockpicking. It’s a set up for mindless grinding.
Another way, which is what I originally proposed, would be that all these basic skills would simply level up along with the player up to a certain point. In order to maximize any skill though, you would need both the player level and the perk.
A third way might be to give players perk points and level points. The level points would be applied to basics and the perk points applied to perks as they are now. This would allow you to pick and choose which of the basics you want to improve first instead of all the skills slowly going up at the same time. Let’s say each basic skill requires 25 level points. If you filled all 25 lockpicking skill points, this gives you the 25% success rate, but again you would still need the perk in order to get that 100% success rate.
A fourth way might be that players have to collect items to level basic skills, like research. Scattered across the map, you might have to find 25 documents about lockpicking which can bring your lockpicking up to a maximum of 25%… but again you still need the perk to get 75% more for the complete 100%. This way is slightly different in that the areas your character excels in is randomly determined.
A fifth way might be to combine the second or third method with the fourth. Maybe the perk gives 50%, the level points up to 25%, research another 25%. This one I personally like the most. In order for any player to max out any skill, they need to apply the perks, they must have played the game a long time, and they must have explored the map fully. All these systems are doing is making it possible for players to improve every aspect of their characters, even if just a little, so that they are not confined to the skill cap and skill trees as much. That’s pretty much all it is, even though it sounds to be very complicated.